But the agents of the senate, actively at work among the crowd, succeeded in dissipating this fatal apathy, and in rousing, in its stead, so furious a spirit of hostility, that the result announced itself in a sacrilegious shower of stones, which rained cruelly on the heads of the priestly host, wholly scattering it, and hitting the pope himself on the temples; who shortly died from the effects of the contusion. This catastrophe happened January 25th, 1145.

The next day the dispersed cardinals came together again in St. Cæsarius' church, and set the thorny tiara on the head of a stranger to their order. This was the abbot of the Cistercian convent of St. Anastasius in Rome, formerly a monk under St. Bernard at Clairvaux. He took the name of Eugenius III. He bore the reputation of a mild and conciliating man; which fact would probably weigh all the more with the conclave under existing circumstances, from the recollection of Celestine II., whose gentleness had tamed what it appeared sternness could not subdue.

But Eugenius now showed that he was not wanting in one set of qualities, because it had hitherto served his purpose to display another. For, rather than recognize the new senate, which the republican party wished to make him do, he quitted the city overnight with all his suite; went through the ceremony of his installation at the convent of Forsa; and then retired to Viterbo.

Here he resided some months, and vainly endeavoured through St. Bernard's agency to induce the Emperor Conrad to arm in his behalf. At last, losing all patience at the lengths to which the Romans—encouraged by his absence—had begun to carry things, he levied at Tivoli, and other well affected places, recruits in his service, took himself the command, and marched to attack his rebellious subjects.

His expedition was crowned with success; the republicans were humbled, and sued for peace. This was granted to them on the conditions, that for the future the pope should nominate the senators; that his Prefect should be restored and their Patrician abolished. Eugenius then held his triumphant entry into Rome amid demonstrations of enthusiastic loyalty, and celebrated there the Christmas of 1145. But it was not long before the clouds of disaffection gathered again as blackly as ever, and discharged such a tempest, on the refusal of Eugenius to give up Tivoli to the implacable hatred of the Romans, that he was forced to flee over the Tiber, amid a volley of darts and stones, hurled after him by the mob. Such in fact were the straits to which the unfortunate pontiff was now reduced, that he at length found it expedient to pass into France.

It was at this juncture (A. D. 1142,) that Arnold of Brescia received an invitation from the Roman senate, now wholly rid as it would seem of its great foe, to visit the eternal city, and lend his aid in completing, as far as possible, the restoration of the old republic.

Such a golden opportunity of realizing the dearest dream of his ambition was irresistible. He accepted the invitation at once; and glowing with the thought of shortly reviving in his own person a Roman tribune of the ancient stamp, he crossed the Alps at the head of a fanatical rabble of Swiss, whom, under the hopes of sharing the glories of the expedition, he had seduced to follow him as a guard amid its perils.

At his passage through Lombardy, where his name was so popular, new bands joined his march. On reaching Rome, he and his men were received in triumph. The citizens, when they heard him in his speeches, set off by quotations from Livy and St. Paul, style them "Quirites," when they heard him give his florid descriptions of the greatness of the ancient republic, and launch his thunders of denunciation at the disgrace of priestly rule, set no bounds to their enthusiasm, but forthwith invested the orator with dictatorial powers. No sooner was this done, than the indefatigable demagogue began his political reforms. These comprised, among the rest, laws for restoring the equestrian rank, and the tribunes of the people; for more strictly excluding the pope from all part in the government; and for reducing to the narrowest limits the prerogatives of the German emperors, as the first step towards shaking off their yoke entirely.

At the end of three years, Pope Eugenius returned to Italy, and addressed a letter from Brescia, in July 1148, to the Roman clergy, warning them against the proceedings of Arnold, whom he denounced as a "schismatic," and as the "main tool of the arch enemy of mankind;" calling on them to desist from abetting rebellion, and to return under the obedience of their lawful Superior: otherwise to incur excommunication.

But neither this letter of Eugenius, nor three successive attempts made by him in the course of the next four years,—at one time by negotiation, at another by arms,—to enter his capital, availed his purpose. At last, a fourth attempt towards the end of 1152, by means of a treaty, under which he agreed to acknowledge the power of the senate, succeeded.

Nevertheless he did not cease to suffer, during the short remainder of his reign, bitter mortifications from the insolence of the senate, and the dictator, Arnold of Brescia, who continued to reside in Rome in all his greatness, and shortly before the pontiff's death in 1153, aware of his repugnance to the republic, and alarmed at his growing favour with the people, defied him openly, by increasing the number of the senators, from fifty to a hundred, and by giving them as presidents, two consuls after the ancient plan, instead of the patrician till then in use.

It was for Eugenius III. that his old preceptor, St. Bernard, composed at his disciple's request, his famous book "de Consideratione;" in which the subject handled is, on the duties of a pope; and in which is given such a graphic description of the degenerate character of the Romans, as also of the Roman clergy in that age. The following extract will not be out of place here:

"What is so well known to the world as the license and pride of the Romans? They are a people opposed to peace, and ever given to sedition; wild and hard to deal with from all time; who only know how to obey when they can no longer resist; who possess understanding, only that they may do evil by it, not to do good. Detested by heaven and earth, they have impiously outraged both. They are criminals before God, profaners of his sanctuary, rebels against themselves, enviers of their neighbours, monsters towards those who do not belong to them. They love no one, and are beloved by no one. They strive after the show of being feared by all, while in fact they themselves fear every body. They cannot endure any submission; but yet know not how to rule. They are false to their superiors, and oppress their subjects. They are shameless in their demands, and reject petitions with a haughty front. With blustering and impatience they press for presents, and are thankless when they have received them. They are great talkers with the tongue, but helpless creatures when it comes to act. They are spendthrifts in promises, niggards in the performance; the most crawling sycophants, and the most venomous slanderers; who feign the most honest simplicity, and are the most malicious of deceivers." [2]

[1] Niccolini, Vita di Arnaldo da Brescia. (Prefixed to his tradegy.) Francke, Arnold von Brescia und Seine Zeit.

[2] De Consideratione, lib. iv. cap. 2. (Cited by Francke, page 190.)

III.

Such were the depraved spirits, and such the ignoble tyranny, which oppressed the Holy See on the demise of Eugenius III.; an oppression which, if its violence seemed to slumber during the short career of Anastasius IV., whose patriarchal age and paternal goodness to the poor in a famine which desolated the country under his pontificate, commanded